


Tumblr Vignettes

by Philosopher_King



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers meet Guardians, Brotherly Angst, Brotherly Love, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, Everybody Feels, Family Drama, Family Feels, Frigga Feels, Gen, Loki Feels, M/M, Odin feels, Sibling Incest, Thor Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2018-11-01 08:43:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10918335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosopher_King/pseuds/Philosopher_King
Summary: Just a collection of Loki-and-Thor-centric minifics originally posted on Tumblr, some of them as commentary on gifsets, most unprompted.





	1. Thorki-ish drabble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted January 23, 2016, with the note "I was eating some chocolate and drinking some Scotch and this happened. Now I think I want Sif and Jane to become best buds." Unfortunately, although there are two named women talking to each other, this does not pass the Bechdel test.

“Neither of us ever had a chance,” Jane said to Sif.  “There was never anyone for either of them but the other—and I don’t just mean that in a romantic way.  Sometimes it seems as if each of them is the only person in the other one’s world.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Sif said dryly.

“No, I don’t mean that in a romantic way, either.  There’s something eternal about them—not just the fact that they’re Asgardian… er, well, both very long-lived… beings.  Something… archetypal.  Cosmic.  Light and darkness, fire and ice, body and mind.  Cupid and Psyche,” Jane added with a little laugh as she remembered what she had learned in college about the meaning of the myth.

“Who?” Sif asked, her brow furrowed in puzzlement.

“Greek mythology,” Jane said, waving her hand in a _don’t worry about it_ gesture.  “Really, though.  I could imagine them being hung in the heavens as constellations after they die, still locked together in something that might be a fight and might be an embrace.  Like Orion and the scorpion, chasing each other around the sky year after year.”

 _“Who?”_ Sif said again.

“Never mind.  Do you want a drink?  I want a drink.”

“Yes, that sounds like an excellent idea,” Sif said wholeheartedly.  “In fact, I think—what is it they say in Midgard?—I think we should get hammered.”

“In the only way we still can,” Jane said, giggling, with the back of her hand against her mouth.

“Wh—?”  Sif looked confused for a moment, then realization dawned on her face, and she gasped, _“Jane!”_

“The premier warrior woman of Asgard and you’re still shocked at sexual innuendo?  I guess the army there isn’t anything like it is here…”

“After a few drinks we’ll see who’s shocking whom,” Sif said grimly, taking Jane’s arm as if for an afternoon promenade.  “Where’s the nearest tavern, then?”

 

 


	2. "This isn't about Jane Foster, Father."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the first of three minifics I added to the gifsets that inspired them, back when I was new to Tumblr and didn't realize that some people get really upset about people reblogging their gifsets, edits, etc. and adding content. I hope that the creators of these particular gifsets took the minifics as the signs of admiration I intended them to be.
> 
> The original post from March 4, 2016, with the instigating gifset made by Tumblr user thorsbaratitty, is [here](http://philosopherking1887.tumblr.com/post/140485960145/shorthairedsif-we-believe-it-thor-thor-was). If the link isn't working, or the gifs aren't loading, or you don't want to redirect: it's a gif from _Thor: The Dark World_ of Odin saying to Thor "Nothing out of order except your confused and distracted heart," then a bunch of gifs from _Thor_ and _The Avengers_ of Thor fighting with Loki (verbally and physically), and then back to Thor in the scene from _The Dark World_ replying "This isn't about Jane Foster, Father."

Thor was almost offended at the idea that Odin  _would_ think his sorrow and frustration were for the mortal woman with whom he had spent all of three days—not for the brother, the comrade, the friend he had known for a thousand years, who had died and come back changed.

“Do you not spare a thought for him?” Thor asked quietly. He was prepared for Odin to ask whom he meant.  _Your son,_ he would answer harshly.  _Your son, whom you could not bury when he died, so you buried him alive instead. Out of sight, out of mind._

But Odin did not ask. “I must ration my thoughts of him, or I would have no thoughts to spare for anything else. Would that I were not a king, so that I might have time enough to be a grieving father.”

“I am glad, then, that I am not a king,” Thor replied.

“Not yet,” said Odin—a sad, gentle echo of the words he had once spoken in anger. A warning, still.  _Rein in your heart,_ he warned.  _Rule and be ruled neither by rage nor by love._

Thor had learned not to be ruled by rage. But if this—his father’s apparent callousness and indifference, the weight of grief he bore secretly and alone—was what it meant not to let oneself be ruled by love, it was a lesson that Thor did not think he wanted to learn.

 

 


	3. The bridge and the grenade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second of the unauthorized minifics on gifsets. [Here](http://philosopherking1887.tumblr.com/post/140648293345/ive-decided-to-make-it-a-thing-to-add-tiny-fics) is the original post from March 7, 2016. The gifset, created by Tumblr user enchantedbyhiddles, shows three pairs of parallel images from the end of _Thor_ and from the scene in _Thor: The Dark World_ when Thor and Loki are fighting the Dark Elves in Svartalfheim: first Loki hanging over the abyss from the collapsing Bifrost while holding onto Gungnir, then Loki trying to run away from one of the Dark Elves' black hole grenades but starting to get pulled up by it, then Loki letting go of Gungnir and starting to fall, then Loki suspended in midair while being pulled toward the black hole, then Loki disappearing into the abyss, and finally Thor flying in to knock Loki away from the black hole.

Thor had begun running after Malekith and his soldiers when he heard from behind him a quiet gasp, then a surprised grunt—Loki’s. Thor’s first thought—a reflex from centuries of fighting at Loki’s side—was that whatever the problem was, Loki was more than capable of handling it himself, and Thor should pursue his own task. What made him turn around—again, almost reflexively—was the realization of how quickly he had fallen back into those old habits, as if nothing had ever changed.

Thor turned—and suddenly the world was upside down. Thor’s feet were no longer on the ground; he was hanging once more from the broken edge of the Bifrost, his ankle in Odin’s strong grip, looking down at Loki, who was holding onto the other end of the staff that Thor had just barely managed to grasp. Then Loki’s grip began to loosen, his hand opened— _he let go, he didn’t just lose his grip, he **let go,**  how could he?—_and Loki was falling away toward the abyss below, his hand still outstretched, his face upturned, his hollow eyes burning their unspeakable desolation deep into Thor’s heart as Thor screamed after him.  _I didn’t pull him up in time, I could have caught him, I could have stopped him…_

Thor shook himself out of the overpowering memory and reoriented himself: Loki was not falling, he was being pulled upward into the rift created by one of the Dark Elves’ black hole grenades; far more importantly, his outstretched hands were reaching for the world below, trying to keep his hold on life, not letting go of all that held him to that world, that life; and still more importantly, Thor could still catch him. Without another thought, he spun Mjolnir in his hand and flew back, away from Malekith and the Aether, and knocked Loki out of the grip of the black hole.

They landed heavily, ungracefully; Thor’s shoulder hit the ground first with a painful jolt, then he rolled onto his side, facing Loki. The expression in Loki’s eyes seemed to burn a new wound into Thor’s heart: alongside the relief and the retreating terror he expected, there was not so much gratitude as… surprise. Loki, of course, had not seen what Thor saw, the mirror image of that moment on the Bifrost, but Thor wondered if he had felt its echo and expected it to end no differently: no one would come to save him.

There was no time to tell Loki how much he regretted that moment, or to describe the hopeful ache in his heart at the thought that he had been given a chance to do it over, to write over the past, to right his mistake. All Thor could do, before he returned to his pursuit of Malekith, was glare at Loki fervently, rebuking that look of surprise.  ** _Never_** _doubt that I love you,_ he wished that glare could say.  ** _Never._**

 

 


	4. Did you mourn? We all did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The third of three minifics on gifsets. Again, [here](http://philosopherking1887.tumblr.com/post/147510502730/daaria-come-home-our-father-has-not-smiled) is the original post, from July 16, 2016. The gifset, by Tumblr user daaria, first shows Loki talking to Thor in the mountaintop scene from _The Avengers_ , asking "Did you mourn?"; then, in black and white, images from the end of _Thor_ of Thor, Odin, and Frigga standing apart from the supposedly celebratory feasting, looking solemn and sad; then, back in color, Thor in _The Avengers_ saying "We all did."

_“Our father has not smiled since you fell,”_ Thor was going to say.  _“He has not been young for many years, but for the first time he truly looks old. His head is bowed, his back stooped as if his grief were a heavy stone he wears around his neck, invisible but for its undeniable weight. He wanders the halls of the palace sometimes, looking lost. Sometimes he finds himself in your old rooms. If it is late in the evening, then Mother is already there. I can hear them argue sometimes through the wall of my chambers, Mother leveling bitter recriminations against which Father only sometimes offers defenses. More often I hear them weeping together, each trying to give the other comfort that they cannot feel themselves._

_“Mother goes to your rooms every evening before she sleeps. She would not allow your old things to be moved from their places—no more than the few possessions we burned in the funeral boat in place of your body. The only concession to your absence she permitted was that the furniture in your chambers be covered with sheets to protect it from dust. But she lifts these away when she visits—I can hear the sweep and rustle of the cloth—and she sits and speaks to you for an hour every night. I can seldom hear what she says, but I perceive the tone: sometimes it is cheerful and conversational, as if she were simply asking you about your day, or discussing with you the books you have read lately; sometimes earnest and imploring, as if she is trying to make you understand the reasons for the lies that drove you away, to beg you vainly to stay. Sometimes it is quiet and broken, and then I know she is only telling you how much she loves and misses you, and how sorry she is, and then the words give way to weeping and then to silence._

_“And as for me: most evenings at sunset I would walk to the broken edge of the Bifrost and look into the darkness below, and I could still see your tear-streaked, desperate face looking up at me._ If only I had been faster,  _I would think,_ if only I had thought of the right thing to say…  _Heimdall would tell me news of the mortal woman Jane Foster, hoping, I think, to cheer me. He must have known what news I truly looked for, because there was sorrow and compassion in his gaze even as he spoke of Jane’s good health and fortune. Can you imagine our joy when at last he came to us with the news that you lived? How we wept and laughed and wondered that we had been given another chance to right our mistakes?_

_“Whatever anger you still bear toward us, Loki, do not vent it in violence upon innocents. Come home, speak your griefs and we will listen, we will try to make amends. Come home, and let our mourning be at an end.”_

But Thor did not have the chance to say all he wanted to say.  “Our father—” he began, and then Loki cut him off with an accusing finger in his face and a cold correction:  _“Your_  father.”

 

 


	5. In this light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't know where this one came from, it just popped into my head and I wrote it down on April 2, 2017.

Thor and Loki were ambling (in truth, half-stumbling) back to their bedchamber from a convivial evening of feasting and jesting with their friends when Loki turned toward Thor to make some playful remark. Before he could begin to speak, Thor caught him by the shoulder with an air of urgency.

“In this light I can really see it,” he said abruptly. “You have Mother’s eyes.”

Loki’s quizzical expression was at once replaced with a stricken one. “That’s impossible and we both know it,” he said, his voice sharp and brittle. “Skuld have mercy... if I have to remind you of that every time you’re drunk, then I swear by the Tree, you’ll never drink again.”

Thor was shaking his head frantically. “No, no, I didn’t mean... I know it can’t be—what you thought I meant. I meant... your eyes are expressive the way hers were. They have the exact same glint when you’re feeling mischievous, the same crinkle when you smile, the same depth of undeniable intelligence. It’s almost like I can see her looking out of your eyes. And laughing at me. But kindly.” Thor realized he was rambling only semi-coherently and stopped himself with an apologetic smile.

Loki’s expression had calmed, but had not softened. “Yes, well, they do say that pets and their owners grow to resemble each other over time.”

It was Thor’s turn to look stricken. “Loki, don’t,” he protested. “You may think you denigrate only yourself when you say such things, but you dishonor her as well. You are her son. You were always her son. She never saw you as anything else.”

Loki ducked his head and turned aside, perhaps in a vain attempt to hide the suspicious brightness in his eyes. “I know. But believing it doesn’t make it so.”

“On the contrary,” Thor remonstrated gently; “it is precisely in cases such as this that it does.”

Loki spent a long moment staring down at his interlaced fingers, seemingly wrestling with himself about whether to say something that was weighing on him. Eventually he spat it out in a rush, as if he worried he might change his mind in the middle of his words. “I told her she wasn’t my mother. It was the last thing I said to her.” When he looked up his tightly closed lips were twisted with shame and regret, and the look in his eyes was at once fearful and pleading and defiant—hoping that Thor would not hate him for what he had confessed, daring him to offer any harsher reproach than Loki had already given himself.

Thor knew better, now. “She knew you were lying,” he said confidently. Frigga had always been able to catch Loki in his deceptions more easily than any of his tutors, or even Thor or Odin, though often she would not betray him with anything more than a knowing quirk of her mouth.

Loki did not deny that he had been lying at the time, and Thor was relieved at the reassurance that at least he knew his brother that well. Instead he asked quietly, with mingled hope and suspicion, “How do you know?”

“She knew your tells,” Thor answered without hesitation, “because they were hers as well. A little pause to collect your thoughts. Confident, pointed eye contact. A deliberately calm and level voice. You are your mother’s son, Loki, in that as in so much else.”

Loki stared at him, perplexed, then broke into a (slightly sheepish) laugh. “You’ve become observant lately,” he remarked, with a teasing tone that was aimed at both of them.

Thor grinned back at him. “I am also our mother’s son, you know... though perhaps not as obviously as you are. And I am your brother.”

 


	6. Value Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one came from a drabble prompt meme. The prompt was as follows: "Leave a 'Value Me' in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character telling another how they feel about them."

“You are incapable of sincerity,” Thor gibed his brother, though his laugh was fond.

“Am I?” Loki said softly. His tone was light, but Thor could hear the hurt underneath it, and instantly regretted his ill-considered jest. Loki met his eyes, and for once they were open and earnest, innocent of mischief. “I’ve looked forward to this day as long as you have,” Loki murmured, so quietly that Thor had to strain to hear him, as if his honesty were the most intimate of secrets, one he could not bear for anyone else to overhear. “You’re my brother and my friend. Sometimes I’m envious”—his eyes flickered down with the admission, his teeth caught at his lip, but then he raised his gaze firmly to Thor’s again—“but never doubt that I love you.”

With a feeling like the ripple of electricity over his skin, or the sudden illumination of a storm-darkened landscape by the flash of lightning, it became clear to Thor that he was being presented with an opportunity that, if he did not seize it, might never come again.

He placed a firm hand where Loki’s neck met his shoulder and said, “I do not doubt it. I have never doubted it. And though I may not always show it—though I may seem to take your aid and loyalty for granted—never doubt how much I love and trust you. If I am not nervous—indeed, if I am not quaking-in-my-boots terrified—it is only because I know I will always have you at my side. Offering me your wise counsel, correcting me when I am foolish, supporting me when I am weary, doing with your mind and your magic the things that my arm and my will, however mighty, could never do. And of course,” he added with a grin, “your tricks will keep me on my toes should I grow complacent, and should my ego grow swollen, the blade of your tongue will lance it.”

Loki did not laugh. Instead, his eyes had gone wide and bright, pained and almost fearful.

“Thor, I—” He paused, uncertain. Thor could almost see in his eyes the battle within his mind: reasons, fears, hopes meeting and striking each other down faster than Thor could ever follow. And then he saw when the battle ended and determination firmed his mouth and glinted in his eyes. “Thor, I’ve done something terrible.”

 


	7. Join Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excellent Thorki writer and Loki-obsessing buddy [darklittlestories](http://archiveofourown.org/users/darklittlestories/pseuds/darklittlestories) left me the following prompt: "Ooh. I'm feeling this one: Leave a 'Join Me' in my ask, and I’ll write a drabble about one character giving another character an offer [be it a proposal for an alliance, asking them to join them in an activity. Feel free to go wherever, but I'd love Loki talking Thor into a devious, Machiavellian scheme. Thor knows the outcome is necessary/good but doesn't love the means to achieve it. Naughty Antihero Loki.. yum. *evil grin*"
> 
> This doesn’t follow the prompt exactly, but having recently seen _Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2_ , I was inspired to run with my idea from [The Abyss Gazes Also](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5236796/chapters/17108125) that Loki met several of the Guardians during the year between _Thor_ and _The Avengers_ (Rocket and Groot during his criminal career, and Gamora and Nebula while in Thanos's clutches).

The official meeting between the Avengers and the Guardians had been called to a close, and now the members of both teams had dispersed around the room and were talking to each other in twos and threes. Gamora and Nebula—having greeted Loki already, the one joyously and the other grudgingly—seemed to be commiserating about something with the women of the Avengers, the Black Widow and the Scarlet Witch. Vision was chatting animatedly with Groot, and seemed to have no trouble at all understanding him. Barton and Quill appeared to have discovered that they had a great deal in common, which Loki was charmed and amused to see, though he still felt a pang of regret that he could never have a truly warm relationship with Barton. Captain Rogers was talking with—or more accurately being talked at by—Drax the Destroyer, and looking distinctly unhappy; he looked across the room to his friends Barnes and Wilson, clearly pleading for rescue, and they exchanged a few words and then laughed, just as clearly having no intention at all of coming to his aid.

Amid all this camaraderie, Rocket had crossed the table (quite literally; he walked across it) to Loki. “Hey, Lucan, or whatever your name really is,” he began.

‘Lucan’ was the name Loki had used when he was operating as a criminal in the Andromeda Galaxy and pretending, more or less, to be Xandarian. “It’s Loki,” he said.

“Eh, close enough,” Rocket replied. “I have a proposition.”

“Oh?” Whatever it was, this should be good.

“I wanna convince that guy that Groot really hates him and wants to fight him.” He jerked his head toward the Falcon.

Loki did not need to ask why he wanted to do that; he understood that Rocket simply thought it would be humorous, and he had to admit that he concurred.

“And what is my role in this charade?” Loki asked, amused.

“Well, since you and your brother have that Asgardian All-mouth thingy, I need you either on board or out of the room. And that purple guy, too.” He waved a paw at Vision. “And knowing you, I was pretty sure you’d get on board,” he added with an exaggerated wink.

Thor was standing just a few paces away, speaking with T’Challa, the grave-faced Wakandan king, whom he had not met before this gathering. Loki regarded his brother consideringly, debating whether to involve him in the scheme or simply find a pretext to dismiss him. He relished the idea of drawing Thor into some bit of mischief as he so often had when they were boys; and as much as he had always insisted to Loki, after they had been caught, that it was entirely Loki’s idea and therefore his fault that they were being punished, Loki recalled that he had never been all that reluctant to join him in the roguery.

“Thor, would you come here a moment?” Loki called, raising his voice just enough to be heard by those standing close by.

Thor excused himself politely, inclining his head to his fellow royal, and T’Challa inclined his head in turn and went to join Rogers; Loki was unsure whether he had noticed the captain’s predicament and hoped to assist him, or whether he was walking unawares into the ‘conversation’ with Drax.

“What is it, brother?” Thor asked, sounding somewhat apprehensive.

“Rocket here has an idea, but he needs our cooperation. He wishes to convince Lieutenant Wilson that Groot does not like him and wants to challenge him to a fight.”

Thor frowned and looked askance at Rocket. “Why do you wish to do that?”

“Because it would be hilarious!” Rocket said with the exasperation of one always being compelled to state the obvious. “No one has any idea what Groot is saying except me, you two, and Mr. Ex-Robot there. He would be so confused, and Groot will be insisting that he said nothing of the sort, and he’ll get madder and madder at me, but everyone will think it’s because he really hates the bird man. But I need one of you backing me up, because if it’s just me saying it, Quill and Gamora will smell a rat.”

“No pun intended, obviously,” Loki added sotto voce.

“Huh?” said Rocket.

“Never mind.” Loki turned to Thor. “It seems to me that this would work best if you support Rocket in his interpretation of Groot while I draw Vision away. The Avengers are even more suspicious of me than your companions are of you,” he explained to Rocket, “while they expect nothing but honesty from my shining paragon of a brother here.” He gave Thor the sweetest of smiles.

Thor still looked skeptical and somewhat disgruntled. “And why should I aid you in this utterly dishonorable enterprise?”

“A sense of fun? A collegial bonding exercise? The sheer Hel of it?” Loki suggested. Then, more quietly, almost sincerely, “Old times’ sake?”

As he regarded Loki with a strange hopeful sadness, Thor’s frown softened, then one side of his mouth twitched upward. “For old times’ sake,” he agreed.

 


	8. From Loki, to Thor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little mini fic thing I composed mostly in the shower and posted on Tumblr on January 3, 2017. Implied Thorki, probably an AU where they're not related. Partly inspired by [ravenbringslight](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenbringslight/pseuds/ravenbringslight)'s very sweet fic [Baby It’s Cold Outside](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8829388/chapters/20242684); governing metaphor borrowed from [thebookhunter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thebookhunter/pseuds/thebookhunter)'s [Cocky Boys](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4263957/chapters/9653091) and [Serpent](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7506325/chapters/17063134). (All of these fics are highly recommended.)

People like me don’t end up with people like you.

Sure, we may seem confident and sexy. Some of us might be good dressers, or good dancers. Even the restless intelligence might be a turn-on for those it doesn’t frighten away. True, we are a bit prickly – but the sharp wit can be sexy, too; and if it’s hard to get close to us, how much more satisfying and rewarding for those who manage it! But soon enough you realize that “a bit prickly” isn’t the half of it. This isn’t a cactus, full of life-giving water and sweet nourishing flesh for those who can find their way past the needles. No, it’s a dark, dense thicket of brambles in here.

Of course, then you’ll see us as a puzzle; a challenge. How to light a path through the shadowy forest? And how does a person grow into such a thicket in the first place? There must be something behind it, beneath it. There must be a great treasure hidden at the center, a beautiful princess sleeping in a tower; why else would someone grow such a maze of thorns, but to protect something precious? There must be fertile soil here, rich enough to grow a magnificent garden; how else could the brambles grow so thick and so high?

But what if there is nothing at the center of the maze? Does it never occur to you that, if you can see no roses on the thornbushes, brambles might be the only things that grow here? You’ve fallen in love not with the forest itself, but with the princess you imagine you’ll battle your way through to awaken, with the garden you’ll plant once you’ve cleared all these thorns. To a hammer, they say, everything looks like a nail. You are a hero, so there must be a quest, and a reward at its end. You are a blazing torch, so the darkness must be dispelled and the lost treasure found. You yourself are so full of light and purpose that you cannot imagine what it is to be a bleak wilderness, with no aim beyond itself.

If you ever realize it, of course, you’ll leave, to find a quest that might bear fruit. Or maybe you never will realize it, and we will leave instead – because we’ve grown so weary of watching you beat yourself bloody against the unyielding thorns; or because when you imagine that you’re hacking your way through to where our true self is hiding, you’re cutting into our only true self, and the pain is too much to bear. People like me don’t end up with people like you; one of us will eventually give up.

People like me don’t end up with anyone.

 


End file.
